Two medical providers taking a RingCentral call on a tablet device

How Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust delivers life-saving care through agile cloud communications

Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust
Region
Europe
Company size
400–4,999
Industry
Healthcare
Products used
Customer Experience logo
KEY METRICS
30%
reduction in call-wait times during peak hours since implementing RingCX
2x
more visibility into call wait times using the RingCX analytics dashboard
6 weeks
from agreement to full RingCX implementation across the organization

Overview

Faced with a sudden office relocation and a rigid legacy phone system, Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT) successfully transitioned to RingCX to safeguard patient appointment coordination. This move slashed peak call wait times by 30% and introduced critical new features like three-way emergency calling. Looking ahead, HCT is exploring AI-driven quality management to further refine the patient experience and clinical efficiency.
Thanks to RingCX, we're able to deliver new services that benefit both our healthcare provider partners and the individuals under our care. We're saving our partners valuable time and resources while, more importantly, enhancing the overall experience for those we serve.
Gary Adams
Head of Digital Operations

About our customer

Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT) has served as a principal community-based healthcare provider for more than 1.2 million residents since its inception. The organization delivers a wide range of essential services, including school nursing and palliative care, across East Anglia and nearby localities.

The challenge: Physical displacement and rigid infrastructure

The Integrated Care Coordination team at HCT faced an immediate operational crisis when the local authority reclaimed their office space, leaving them with only six weeks to find a new home and a functional communications platform. Because the existing phone infrastructure belonged to the local government, it could not be moved, potentially disrupting communications for teams that manage critical medical appointments every day.
 
  • Lack of mobility: The legacy system lacked softphone capabilities, forcing staff to rely on physical handsets and tethering them to their desks.
  • Administrative bottlenecks: Making minor adjustments to IVR instructions required external approval and long wait times for third-party providers.
  • Zero visibility: Leadership lacked the necessary data to track call volumes or performance metrics in real-time.

The solution and ROI: A rapid shift to intelligent coordination

To navigate this urgent transition, HCT collaborated with their technology consultant, Future Voice and Data Limited, whose expertise was pivotal in identifying RingCX as the ideal solution for their complex requirements. HCT now operates with a level of self-sufficiency that allows non-IT staff to update routing rules in minutes, and the team is more broadly benefiting from RingCX’s abilities to:
 
  • Empower the 120-person contact center team to work remotely from their laptops, ensuring patient services remained uninterrupted during the office move.
  • Provide 2x more visibility through an analytics dashboard, allowing managers to divert resources instantly when call volumes spike.
  • Facilitate a custom three-way calling feature that, when an ambulance gets called to a patient’s home, the service uses RingCX to call HCT’s coordination hub whose team can help determine in real-time the specific care needed and to which hospital the ambulance should take the patient.
  • Introduce call recording for the first time, which the team uses to accelerate the onboarding of new starters with real-world examples.
RingCX contact center dashboard with ongoing call on follow-up questions.

What’s next for Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust

Gary Adams and his team are now investigating the integration of AI Quality Management within the RingCX platform to automatically transcribe calls and analyze patient sentiment. This forward-looking research aims to provide even deeper insights into clinical interactions and operational trends. By embracing these advancements, HCT ensures its long-standing legacy of community care is supported by the most sophisticated cloud technology available.
To learn more about our customer, visit Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust.